Opened Pool to Green, Algae won't die

[richg]

25K IG Vinyl liner 18x36 with deepend. Hayward super pump with sand filter.

We opened the pool last weekend and found that it was an ugly green swamp. This is the first time this has occurred for the 3 years we have been in the house. So I immediately went off to walmart and bought a TON of bleach.

The FC has been held at 20+ for the past several days (poolcalculator shows 16 for shock level), and I really still don't see a noticable improvement! Since I can't see the bottom, I have blindly vacuumed to waste, scooped, brushed, and my blue diamond has been working non stop pulling out whatever it can (which has turned out to be mainly a ton of pine needles that made it under the cover). Have even been putting the cover back on during the day to not let the algae get any sunlight.

My water test (using TFT kit) is as follows:

CYA...50
FC.....25
TA.....110
PH.....7.2

I have never encountered something like this before. To top it off my SWG wouldn't come back online after the off season so we've been manually adding bleach to maintain the high shock chlorine level.

At this point, if it wasn't a vinyl liner pool, I would likely just drain it all and start over as I'm so frustrated right now. Is there a way to drain all the water out of a vinyl liner pool??

 

[loughps]

You can drain a vinyl liner pool, how much you drain depends a lot on the water table in your area. It's generally better to do a series of partial drain and fills, but it makes me want to ask what your water source is. I don't see anything in your post that would make me think draining is the way to go. How long have you been shocking?

Have you read this article on defeating algae? It really sounds like you're starting out the right way. My 2 cents is just to keep up shocking, brushing, vacuuming and filtering. Make sure to backwash your filter as needed (usually a 6 - 8 psi pressure increase.)

Is there something I'm missing that makes you feel like a drain and fill is a better idea?

 

[richg]

For this season, I'd venture that about half of the water in the pool right now is rain/snow from this past off-season.

Yes, the defeating algae article is what I've been following. The reason I'm considering draining the water right now is simply because I've had the FC at 20+ constant since Monday afternoon and it seems like I'm not making any ground in the fight. I've battled algae in the past and it seems like after a day or so you start to see the fruits of your labor.

I had thought that I had to keep some water in a vinyl lined pool for risk of the liner getting unseated? I know when the liner was installed, they had a blower installed to apply suction to the backside of the liner until the water level got high enough.

This pool does have poor circulation (single return, single skimmer, single side suction port), BUT, it has been relatively easy to keep it crystal clear all season once I learned the basics and worked out some kinks.

Rich

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

I wouldn't drain it... better to be safe.
I would suggest trying a slightly higher target maybe 25? see if that helps.

Question - are you testing an hour or so after the last addition to see if you are reaching your goal?

 

[richg]

I wouldn't drain it... better to be safe.
I would suggest trying a slightly higher target maybe 25? see if that helps.

Question - are you testing an hour or so after the last addition to see if you are reaching your goal?

As of right now, I am not as I'm just about out of the 0871 reagent and have been testing more sparingly. This algae and high shock levels have depleted my supply with all the testing I have been doing. Have been adding one 182 oz jug of 6% bleach every few hours and testing BEFORE I add the jug. I ordered some more reagents and hopefully they will arrive the mail today or tomorrow.

My wife did just do a test for me a few minutes ago, and FC was 22.5 (23 TC, .5 CC).

Since my SWG is down, I was considering picking up some chlorine tabs to maintain the chlorine level as I have already wiped out the local walmart's bleach supply. Which tabs would be the right ones to get so that I don't keep increasing my CYA?

rich

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

There are two kinds of tabs, one contains CYA and the others are cal-hypo. The calhypo ones are messy and don't dissolve very well, and you can't use them in a vessel that contained trichlor.

Have you tried diagnosing the SWG issue?
(because if you can get it to work it's okay to use trichlor tabs - you'll want your CYA up to 60-80 anyway...)

 

[richg]

It is an IPURE from intermatic. It worked like an absolute champ last season when I put it in, was very happy with it. But this season, it will not start generating. The power light comes on, but nothing else is functioning. I have been talking with intermatic about it and likely will have to send it back in for warranty repair. The cell looks mint, I cleaned it anyways just in case and there was really nothing to be cleaned -- the acid bath didn't even foam up. I cleaned all connections (they were fine, no corrosion). Salt level is right at 4000 ppm (where it ran the best last season).

Rich

 

[duraleigh]

Rich,

Partially draining the pool is never a good option to get rid of algae. You end up with an algae laden pool 1/2 full of water and the new water is brought in and VERY quickly the algae flourishes in it as well.

I understand your frustration but Clorox or liquid chlorine is the only economical answer to your pool problems.

Pucks release chlorine too slowly to be of any real advantage when shocking your pool.

There is a product called MPS that may speed things up some but is about triplwe the cost of chlorine, I think.

Remember that the only reason you are using chlorine is because it is killing the algae that is in your pool. Until you kill ALL that algae (or other organics)you will continue to consume chlorine.......virtually, you have little other choice than to stay on the path because it is the cheapest and almost the quickest path you can take.

 

[richg]

When I got home from work yesterday, the pool had finally started to turn the corner. I increased the FC a good bit higher for overnight and this morning, I have a lovely cloudy blue pool! Now to just maintain and filter / vacuum out the dead algae.

Intermatic is sending me a new SWG under warranty, so hopefully I will have that next week. They informed me that they are no longer going to be carrying the Ipure SWG (which they do get from Resilience), as simply they weren't making any money on them. I can see why -- they were selling the unit I got which can do 2.07 lbs of chlorine per day with a 7 yr warranty (rated up to 60K gallons by resilience) for ~$500-600. They said resilience will likely end up taking over the warranty on the units they sold.

Rich